Lost Property: Maintenance Threw Away an $500 Ice Skate That Fell Out of My Bag Outside of Apartment

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Maintenance Threw Away an $500 Ice Skate That Fell Out of My Bag Outside of Apartment

My question involves personal property located in the State of: California.

This has been bothering me a lot and I figured I would seek the advice of this forum regarding and instance that occurred Sun Jan 22nd 2012.

Apparently after playing Ice Hockey and carrying my equipment to my apartment, one of my ice skates (My Skates were $950 brand new but which I had bought off eBay only a month earlier for $415 Like New) fell out of my bag. I didn't notice until Tuesday when i arrived to a pick up game and noticed my skate missing. I rushed around backtracking and finally found out from several neighbors that they had seen the skate Mon and Tues morning and had put it against a tree for me to pick up because they noticed it looked brand new and valuable. One neighbor explicitly said he saw a maintenance guy pick it up and put it on his golf cart. I had to call the management company of the apartment complex because the maintenance team would not answer my calls or pages because i guess it was 4 o'clock and they closed early for some reason on Tuesdays. Anyways the management rep i got through too contacted me and told me that the maintenance did pick it up but that the guy had thrown it away. She assured me that they would dig it out for me in the morning.

The next morning, I arrived at the office first thing and was told they didn't open until 9, but couldn't do anything anyways because it had been thrown away Monday and the trash already came. I was suspicious of this so I proceeded to jump through many of the dumpsters on the site, including where he had said he had thrown it away in. I never found it and the maintenance crew was pretty rude and apprehensive about the whole thing even though I was very nice about it just wanting my skate back.

People have told me that I should file a small claims case against the apartment complex or maintenance guy. I want to know if i can? or what i can do? I can provide more details and have emails saved regarding the issue when i was looking for the skate from the management. I also have my receipt for the skates. One skate is basically useless, and I really disliked the way they handled the situation on the management and maintenance side. Also, some of the neighbors said they saw it Tuesday morning but the maintenance team swore it was Monday and didn't lift a finger to help me when I was diving through the dumpsters. I gave my thirty day as a result and just moved out of the apartment on Wednesday. (feb 29th)

People have told me that I should file a small claims case against the apartment complex or maintenance guy. I want to know if i can?

Really anyone can sue anyone else for anything they want. But to have a chance to WIN, you'll need to prove that the apartment complex or its employees owed you any duty regarding the skate. (Hint: they didn't). You dropped it. It was as good as gone at that point. We can only assume that you didn't have your name/address/phone number on the skate, so even the best of good samaritans who found your lost skate had no way to know whose it was or how to contact you. That some person left the skate against a tree hoping for the owner to notice and retrieve it was a very nice thing, but management isn't under any obligation to just let people turn the grounds into a lost and found, and in most complexes unless someone turned something into the office, one should expect maintenance to remove it if it's just laying around in the public spaces. Unfortunately, it got tossed before management could inform maintenance to the contrary, but while it's a terrible thing to have lost something so expensive, the only responsible party here is you.

You honestly think people making what maintenance men make are going to dumpster dive for you? Really? Any idea how incredibly nasty, not to mention dangerous, that is? Any idea what liability that creates for the apartment complex (who likely would not have ALLOWED their employees to dumpster dive, even if they wanted to - and who for their own legal protection probably shouldn't have allowed YOU to dumpster dive either). Bottom line is while you may not like the way it was handled, it wasn't handled in a way that would create liability for the complex or their employees.

I rushed around backtracking and finally found out from several neighbors that they had seen the skate Mon and Tues morning and had put it against a tree for me to pick up because they noticed it looked brand new and valuable.

Maybe your genius neighbors should have brought it to you, or put it in their apartment until they saw you again, rather than leaving it out especially since they "noticed it looked brand new and valuable." Someone could have easily stolen it...or thrown it away thinking it was trash. Not everyone knows what a valuable ice skate looks like. Sue your neighbors while you're at it for not safeguarding your skate, they had as much duty to safeguard it as your apt. complex (none).

Maybe your genius neighbors should have brought it to you, or put it in their apartment until they saw you again, rather than leaving it out especially since they "noticed it looked brand new and valuable." Someone could have easily stolen it...or thrown it away thinking it was trash. Not everyone knows what a valuable ice skate looks like. Sue your neighbors while you're at it for not safeguarding your skate, they had as much duty to safeguard it as your apt. complex (none).

I suspect the neighbors didn't know who the skate belonged to but due to its apparent value, realized it was not simply a discarded skate. They then placed it against the tree so whoever owned it might find it.

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